Symbiosis
by upticks
Summary: A man is found in a storage room in a hired out floor of the pharmaceutical giant, Symbiotic Pharmaceutics. Booth and Brennan are on the case, looking for answers, and when they find them, they're more surprising than they thought. B&B Case Fic.


"_I'm just saying... I mean, you in the lab, me in the field – we are not working at our full symbiotic potential."_

-Seeley Booth (3x01 – The Widow's Son In The Windshield)

"Symbiosis is defined as the intimate living together of two dissimilar organisms, frequently; but not always in a mutually beneficial relationship." Brennan comments, staring disinterestedly out the window of the SUV at the streets that flash by. A coffee shop, cafe, movie cinema, alley way.

"Yeah, I know, Bones. Like that clownfish trying to get back to his dad and the anemone? You know, that movie??" Booth asks, pointing his finger in the air at nothing in particular for emphasis, trying to get the words off the tip of his tongue as his other hand steers through the busy streets of D.C.

"I don't have any idea what you're talking about, Booth. And why did you bring it up, anyway? " She stares at him blankly, almost bemused by the pop culture reference.

"You know... Nemo! That was it, Finding Nemo!" Still blank. "The clownfish with the little flipper? No? It was a kids movie a while ago? And... don't worry, 'kay?"

"You know I don't watch children's movies, Booth. And how did they have a movie about a fish?" Her voice is laden with disapproval, and Booth sighs.

"It was animated, Bones. But Nemo and his dad lived in an anemone – would that be symbiotic?"

Brennan is uncharacteristically surprised, and a smug smile tweaks at the corners of her lips. "Wow, Booth, I'm impressed. And... where are we going?

"Male, approximately late thirties to early fourties... I can't tell cause of death as of yet."

"Mr. Dennick, you were the one that reported this, am I right?" Booth is leaning against a wall, trying to stay as far away from the putrid body as possible, while Brennan is leaning right over, analysing every indicator of who this person was and what happened to him as three others survey the musty storeroom.

"That's right. I was doing me morning shift, cleaning up just outside here like I always do, and I thought something smelled kinda funny. So I got the keys from the locker room and found... this..." The janitor screws up his face in disgust, trying to hold his breath.

"Why hadn't you noticed it before then?" He asks quizzically, raising one eyebrow as if the janitor's behaviour was highly suspicious, and if to confirm this, Mr. Dennick pulls out a hankerchief and wipes his brow carefully.

"When we had some financial trouble a few years back, they decided instead of cutting jobs they would hire out some of the higher floors as storage rooms, conference venues, whatever. I hadn't been in here in years."

Booth grabs out a notepad and pen from his jacket pocket, scrawling some things down after flipping it open and removing pen from lid.

"What about the smell?" Brennan pitches in, still crouched down, trying to tease taut, charred skin away from the cheekbones to better understand the race of the victim. "Wouldn't you have noticed it before? Why today?" She looks up, her eyes drilling into the middle aged worker.

"Easy Bones, don't be so harsh. This is a person, not a piece of meat." Booth reprimands.

"I've uh... cleaned the lower floors since they started to hire this place out. The building janitor did these floors, but he... quit last week." He leans back on his mop, closes his eyes and massages his temples gently.

"Look, sir, I'm going to need the name of that janitor." Booth pries sympathetically, realizing that this must have been hard on the man.

"Byron Redder. Don't know where he went, but he was a young kid. Prob'ly went to somewhere better than here."

"What exactly do you mean by th-?" Brennan tries to ask, but Booth gives her a jarring look and raises his eyebrows as if to say "What the hell do you think you're doing?" and she slips into silence, attention to the body who was beginning to fester in the heat of the day, sunlight slipping through the windows to the east of the room.

"Thanks, Mr. Dennick. That's all we'll need." He nods his head, slipping the notebook and pen back inside his jacket, and stepping aside to allow him out of the room. As soon as he's gone, he receives a deathly glare back from his partner, matching the one he gave her.

"Is that why you wanted to know what symbiosis was? Because we're at Symbiotic Pharmaceuticals?" She stands up, pulling the now-bloodied latex gloves off her hands, then crossing her arms in a 'not pleased' gesture.

"Yeah, kind of. But I already know what it means, Bones! So what do we know?" He gets another glare, then she succumbs to his 'patented charm smile'.

"Whoever set the fire wasn't very experienced at arson. See this?" She points a dainty finger at the floor, then at the legs. "There's blood, and the body is still..." She pauses, searching for the right word. "Fleshy. That wouldn't happen if the fire didn't go out for a long time, or encompassed this whole room."

She walks over to the other side of the room, passing several shelves and filing cabinets, then stopping right where a Medico-Legal Lab helper and a large puddle. "This is gasoline. The fire was meant to spread over here."

"But it didn't."

"Exactly. And there's something odd about the body. It's almost absolutely stiff, like he was paralysed before he was set on fire."

"Why would he do that?"

"I don't know. I'll need to send this to the lab." She looks at him for approval, pulling out her cell phone and dialling in a number at the same time, gaze flashing between the two.

"The body?"

"No, all of it." She makes it sound like it was an obvious answer.

"Why?"

"There might be a reason he was killed in this room, Booth. Maybe it has something to do with the files that were stored in here. You should probably go and find out who was hiring this room." She smiles.

"Wow Bones, you're getting good at this stuff now, huh?" He grins, and she presses the call button as he walks out.

"I really, really like pie." Booth grins, shovelling another fork-full of pie into his mouth as his partner stares at him blankly. "Nevermind."

"You seem happy, Booth. Are you getting Parker for the weekend or something?" She queries, tilting her head to the side slightly, as if to figure out the strange burst of joy he's experienced. That usually doesn't happen when they have a new case. He keeps eating. Chew, crunch, fork. Chew, crunch, fork. She finds it fascinating, from an anthropological angle. His eyebrows then raise, and she jolts in her seat, and he's about to say something, but doesn't. Things are quiet for the next few minutes, while he devours his pie and she eats her salad.

"Yeah. And this is fantastic pie. Do you want some?" He holds out the fork, laden with mince and crust to her, chewing loudly, as she shirks back in her seat.

"No... thanks, Booth. And you should keep your mouth closed when you chew."

"Whatever. Your loss." He smiles sheepishly.

**A/N: Tell me what you think! C'mon, press that little button that says 'review'. You know you want to!**


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